DASCA's eminence as the developer of the world's most definitive credentials for marking excellence in the Big Data profession serves very well all stakeholders – Big Data tech-stables, Big Data professionals, Big Data training outfits, as well as business schools and universities breeding higher–grade professional talents.

Available across 183 countries, DASCA certification exams are built on 5th generation TEI technologies delivered through state-of-the art QTI-PCI aligned test engines by ExamStrong, the world's largest exam-delivery ecosystem specializing in highest-stake certification exams of world's leading 3rd party standards and credentialing bodies.

Partnering DASCA implies building powerful real–time bridges with the state-of-the-art in Data Science thought and practice worldwide, and profiting in business through world-class Big Data standards, certifications, and knowledge networks.

Big Data technology stables, Big Data consulting outfits, IT training companies, leading universities, business schools, higher education institutions, and government ICT academies – all are adding to the rapidly swelling DASCA worldwide network. And if your organization is yet to ally with DASCA, well, then just start the process now! We'll be privileged to have you join in.

The Big Data ERA

Big Data is the biggest boon yet for people who take mission-critical decisions, and for machines that try to think like humans do. And help discover impossible-looking things like gravitational waves.

The 21st century alone has created 98% of all data that humankind has piled up since we started writing history. In 2010, Google's Eric Schmidt estimated that the world created around 5 Exabytes of information between the dawn of civilization and 2003. Now that same amount is created every two days, the world definitely needs huge numbers of Analysts and Engineers as well as Data Managers to take care of such an enormous amount of data. The fact is that all technology domains and industry sectors appear to have shrunk around Big Data. Software Programmers, Networking Professionals, Project Managers, Testers, and even Digital Marketers and Market Researchers are looking up to Big Data for giving them a quantum leap in their respective professions.

And we certainly need these professionals in a big way. How else will our cars go driverless, cardiac arrests be preempted, and aliens be tracked swifter, if at all? Who is going to equip the meteorology departments for more accurate and even real–time predictions on climate change, twisters, and earthquakes? We need Big Data dreamers and dream catchers to ensure pandemics can be diffused; supply chains can be sharpened, sped up, leaned down further; and robots can become agonizingly so human. And some say, Big Data can even make perfect babies and help choose great presidents!

But going back a little, we believe the very first warnings of data becoming big were flashed in 1944 even as the world was busy trying to end its 2nd big war. And by what he said then, Fremont Rider proved he was not a mere librarian of the Wesleyan University by any count. He was a yarn–spinner, some said, when they heard Rider scaring Yale out of its boots by his estimates that by 2040, the Yale library would creep across 6,000 miles, creating the requirements for 6,000 staffers for cataloging alone!

But the advent of the Big Data era was practically heralded in 2005, when Doug Cutting's open source Big Data cruncher software, Hadoop, was recast by the Yahoo! Spinoff, Hortonworks. Big Data has not looked back ever since, creating a demand for its professionals in millions and spawning hundreds of Big Data startups. By 2018, the USA alone is expected to face a shortage of 140–190k Data Scientists as well as 1.5 million Data Managers (McKinsey report in 2011 "Big Data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity")

Big Data appears the biggest godsend for the passionate and the ambitious this side of the century. And DASCA stands solidly right behind to help such professionals make the most of the Big Data era.

Insights

Did You Know?

Even as Steve Bryson and Roger Mougalas may fight on who used or coined the term Big Data first, the thing itself has exploded and expanded to become much bigger than big.

The Future of Data Science Professions

The DASCA view of the rapidly changing and expanding Data Science career landscape serve as clear, loud hints on how professionals, employers, and educators should prepare themselves for leveraging the phenomenal Big Data promise.

Data Science has branched off into multiple specialized tracks in the last ten years to help global data factories rebuild themselves into producers of Business Intelligence for corporations, government agencies, and other organizations. Though at their core, all Data Science professional or specialization tracks still retain their traditional flavors, their methods and tools of managing big data have changed dramatically – as the scale, complexity, volume, velocity, and variety of data keep exploding through the roof – both, confounding, and exciting decision-makers at the same time.

The transformation of data into Big Data has not only added to the complexity of conventional data jobs, it has also generated new categories of interdisciplinary roles – and spawned an era of several new Data Science career tracks – many of these demand multi–dimensional competence.

The following are the most important Data Science career tracks to have emerged in the last decade:

Data Science+

Data Scientists blend their knowledge, experience, and insights on business, marketing, specialist subjects, and management with their expertise in research and statistics to explore, define, and innovate ways how data can be used by organizations for making progressively more accurate, meaningful, and real–time decisions.

They also architect the analytics ecosystem required to convert petabytes of Big Data into solid chunks of Business Intelligence for corporations and governments.

More than 10% of the total global demand of 5 million Big Data professionals by 2017 is for Data Scientists.

Data Research & Analysis +

Big Data Analysts model and analyze huge chunks of data in sync with desired objectives using their skills of mining, research, and analysis of data on specialist statistical and mathematical analytics tools.

They deploy their knowledge and understanding of business and management fundamentals to generate insights out of their analysis.

More than 60% of the total global demand of 5 million Big Data professionals by 2017 is for Big Data Analysts.

They use their skills in programming and software testing etc., to work on popular Big Data platforms like Hadoop and Spark, and are also required to have knowledge about business basics and analytics tools and techniques.

Around 500k Big Data Engineers would be needed worldwide by 2017 according to a conservative DASCA estimate.

Data Architecting+

Despite the fact Data Architects have been around for a couple of years, they are now quickly entering probably the most lucrative phase of their career.

Big Data Architects do all the essential planning, and coordinate data resources in an organization. Knowing about application architecture acts as a plus point to advance in the career of Data Architect.

They blend their experience, skills, and expert knowledge about data systems with their exposure to data management processes and data analytics to help build the infrastructure required for clustering, segregation, distribution, mobility, and transfer of Big Data among various stakeholders.

Around 5% of the total global demand of 5 million Big Data professionals by 2017 is for Big Data Architects.

Data Administration+

Big Data Administrators are responsible for erecting, managing, and maintaining the infrastructure and ecosystem of a Big Data management set up.

They blend their knowledge, experience, and skills on server administration, security, network planning with their exposure to data management processes to also handle clustering, segregation, distribution, mobility, and transfer of inbound and throughput
data to ensure data keeps reaching intended points without disruption, contamination, and risk.

Approximately 300k Big Data Administrators are required worldwide in 2017, if we are to leverage the Big Data promise to its fullest.

The other tracks are those of Data Management, Data Visualization, NoSQL management, and Data Warehousing management.

The Data Science Council of America (DASCA) is an independent, third–party, international credentialing and certification organization for Big Data and Data Science professionals, and has no interests whatsoever, vested in the development, marketing or promotion of any platform, technology, or tool related to Data Science applications. DASCA validates capabilities and potential of individuals for excelling in critical Data Science professions including Big Data Analytics and Big Data Engineering. DASCA advented the world's first and the most powerful exercise ever to aggregate, assess, validate, refine, classify, optimize, standardize, and model the generics of professional knowledge prerequisites for designers, managers, developers, and technologists working in the Data Science space. DASCA certification programs for aspiring and working Big Data and Data Science professionals are fleshed on the world's first vendor–neutral standards – the five–pronged DASCA Essential Knowledge Framework (EKF™), which is a constantly evolving concept, and hence does not purport to be complete or absolutely perfect at any point in time. Though, the EKF™ and all DASCA certifications constantly aim at assisting professionals in exceling consistently in their jobs, there are no specific guarantees of success or profit for any user of these concepts, products or services. DASCA and/or its partner institutions reserve the rights to cancel, modify and revise timetables, schedules, calendars, fee-structure, course-modules, assessment and delivery structures of any program, either offered independently by DASCA or jointly with partner institutions, without prior notice to prospective and registered program participants. DASCA and its collaborating institutions reserve the rights of admission or acceptance of applicants into certification and executive education programs offered by them. DASCA & DASCA Partner organizations do not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, sex or sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, age, national or ethnic origin, political beliefs, veteran status, or disability in admission to, access to, treatment in, or employment in their programs and activities.

All DASCA business, knowledge, operations and backend processes related to the management of customer relationships, customer-support, credentialing logistics, partner-network, and invoicing are exclusively handled by the globally distributed offices of CredForce, the worldwide credentialing services leader. DASCA can remove or replace at any point in time, any of its vendors, associates or partners found underperforming, or engaged in unethical business practices to preserve the interests of its customers and maintain the standards of its services to the highest of levels as expected. CredForce has no role to play in certification award decisions of the Data Science Council of America. Individuals or organizations deciding to deal with or do business with DASCA are assumed to have read and agreed to these facts pertaining to DASCA services, practices and policies. All queries may be directed to info@dasca.org